The LowCostNav project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council through FRIPRO and it will develop nonlinear observers for attitude estimation and integration of MEMS-based inertial sensors aided by position reference systems. Today it is possible to buy accurate MEMS gyros and accelerometers with low-level software and built-in temperature compensation for less than USD 100. These units can be used in strapdown INS systems aided by GNSS, hydroacoustic positioning, radio or other position reference systems. The goal of the project is to replace the EKF with nonlinear observers for attitude determination and sensor integration without performance degradation. This will reduce the computational footprint significantly and the software can be used in different applications such as low-cost consumer electronics, cars, navigation systems for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), ships, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Important aspects are:

MEMS technology and embedded systems are changing the rules of the game and opens for the development of low-cost compact position, velocity and attitude (PVA) units.

Nonlinear observers for estimation of PVA can replace traditional EKF designs with comparable performance and at the same time guarantee global exponential stability (GES) and convergence. Hence, performance and robustness can be guaranteed and quantified by mathematical methods.

It is possible to develop effective computer algorithms that can be implemented using only a fraction of the source code footprint as well as computational complexity when compared to a standard EKF implementation. This will simplify implementation, maintenance and software verification and documentation.